Charles, 1st Baron Darling ; Austin Osman SPARE ( illustrator ). On the Oxford Circuit and Other Verses.

by DARLING

£225 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

By One of the ‘Worst Judges in History’ DARLING, Charles, 1st Baron Darling ; Austin Osman SPARE ( illustrator ). On the Oxford Circuit and Other Verses. London : [ Chiswick Press for ] Smith, Elder, Co . 1909. Small 4to. Publisher’s vellum-backed boards with drab paper sides, upper board and spine lettered directly in gilt, uncut; pp. 79, [1]; 4 wood-engraved plates, numerous wood-engraved vine initials and tailpiece by Austin Osman Spare; corners lightly bumped, slight discolouration and wear to foot of spine; but a fine copy; blind-embossed ‘presentation copy’ stamp to title, contemporary gift inscription to p. 7 ‘To the Recorder of Hythe’, dated ‘The Kennel, Berks’, 29 January 1910’. First edition in book form, and the first to be illustrated by occultist Austin Osman Spare, of this legal poem by polemical Justice of the Peace and M.P. for Deptford Charles Darling, notorious for his theatrical behaviour in court, this copy seemingly presented by the author to a fellow judge. On the Oxford Circuit (pp. 7–29) was inspired by the abrupt death of Common Pleas Justice Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd in the midst of ‘delivering his charge to the Grand Jury at Stafford on the Oxford Circuit, of which he had been Leader’ (p. 79). It had appeared ‘in a form more imperfect, I hope’ in the Cornhill Magazine , and a few of the other poems had been published in other forms in the National Review and the Westminster Gazette . There follow sonnets to Auguste Rodin, the actor and early supporte

• Binding: Hardcover

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